Brush Creek – 10/26/2018

After spending my second night at the Gaboury’s luxurious home in Eagle Ranch, my friend Dave G. was finally free to join me in some fly fishing. The night before we discussed a split session with a few hours in the morning on Brush Creek followed by an early afternoon session on the Eagle River. Based on my experience on the Eagle during the same calendar time period in 2017, I was fairly certain that we would encounter a decent blue winged olive hatch in the PM.

On Friday morning we tracked the hourly temperature on my weather application, and the graph displayed 45 degrees for 10AM warming to 49 by 11AM. Upon seeing this projection of chill, Dave G. decided to forego Brush Creek, so I made the short drive to Brush Creek Confluence Park myself. Although the air temperature was in fact in the forties, as I strung my Orvis Access four weight and pulled on my waders, the bright sun made it seem much milder. I wore my long sleeved insulated Columbia undershirt, my fishing shirt and a gray fleece; and I was relatively comfortable during my one hour on lower Brush Creek.

When I was properly attired and geared up, I completed the short hike on a well worn path to the point where Brush Creek empties into the Eagle River. The Eagle was quite turbid, so I was not tempted to make a few prospecting casts to the run below the merge point. I immediately veered to the left and knotted a peacock hippy stomper and iron sally to my line.

Nice Start on Friday

Over the next hour I progressed upstream, until I was just above the US 6 bridge that spanned the creek. Along the way I cast the two fly dry/dropper to all the likely trout holding locations. I maintained a decent distance, as the water was at low autumn flows, and I was very efficient in my prospecting. For the most part I limited my casts to three per spot, and only a couple places merited five or six drifts.

Representative of My Catch on Brush Creek on Friday

The strategy rewarded me with six landed brown trout in one hour of focused fly fishing, but all the trout were in the ten to eleven inch range. I was pleased with my catch rate but disappointed with the size of the fish. My cautious approaches were mainly effective, although I did observe a few fleeing trout at the tail of select pools. At 11:45 I reeled up my line and hooked the iron sally to the bottom rod guide and returned to the car.